“RiverFest is a celebration of the river, trying to encourage more people to come down to the river, enjoy the river, just show the great ways you can recreate down in the river valley,” Collingwood said.

The cancellation comes on the heels of a successful event on Saturday in Edmonton’s Laurier Park.

“Saturday was such a great day, we reached our goal,” Collingwood said. “Our intention was to get over 2,000 people down to the river. We more than doubled what we had from last year so people are rediscovering the river.”

Organizers were up early Sunday morning to check forecasts; that’s when the decision to cancel Sunday’s events was made.

“Safety is our number one priority and with the weather we knew it was going to be cold. We knew it was going to be windy,” Collingwood said. “In the next couple of days we’re going to be reaching out to everyone to let them know that refunds will be shortly forthcoming.”